


heard only in echo

by Dayadhvam



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayadhvam/pseuds/Dayadhvam
Summary: Keith at the Garrison, Keith in the desert; Keith in company, Keith alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [keith-week](http://keith-week.tumblr.com/post/150686930469/hello-again-based-on-the-amount-of-suggestions-we) @ [tumblr](https://dtriad.tumblr.com/post/150982558066/heard-only-in-echo), day 1 prompts: _Galaxy Garrison | Anger_. The title is from Kimberly Johnson's "[Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages](http://www.versedaily.org/2007/longenfolk.shtml)."

1\. 

His third Sunday at the Garrison: two apples at breakfast, mealy but edible; the unsolicited advice that he should cut his plebe hair shorter, _again_ ; an invite from his roommate Peter to tag along to wargames club; a painfully patchy knowledge of history, most of all his own; the empty gym and a foil all to himself that night; and the sound of a clear voice. “Cadet Kogane?” A first class cadet, a smiling stranger, introducing himself as Shiro.

His thirteenth Sunday at the Garrison: a day’s worth of free time to spend with a friend, as they liked it.

 

2.

“Hey! Keith. So I was talking with Choi the other day and he told me your sim reports have finally inched up to the required one page. Good job, buddy. About time.”

“Oh—yeah. Thanks, Shiro. I tried. But you know… it’s like asking how I breathe. I just do it. Explaining how that happens is harder.”

“Sure, I’ve seen your sims—I get what you mean. But Choi is only going to be satisfied when you start giving updates as often as you smile in the sim. I know you know a team can’t operate on total radio silence.”

 

3.

Look—she said, so Keith listened—my kid cousin lent it to you, he as good as willed it to you, so keep the damn hover bike. None of _us_ are Garrison-trained pilots: I cover surgery, not spaceflight; his old bestie’s doing law; god knows his grandma isn’t planning on joyrides. And don’t pretend that you don’t want it. Fuck. I don’t mean to sound angry. I just—

Look, you don’t need to be unselfish and give his bike back. He’d want you to have it.

Yeah. He said that you reminded him of how fun it was to fly.

 

4\. 

That evening he rode out past looming rock spires and hoodoos burnished copper by soft red fire from a dying sunset and heard the desert air cackle in his ears with verve electric and wild from some omen unknown in all ways but for the foreboding in his livid heart. He came at last to the Garrison rearing out of dirt like a concrete cat with its back frozen in a permanent hiss. Above him the sky was afire and seemed near as close to his eyes as the unborn sparks of explosives in his hands.

And there he waited.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up as a weird experiment with style. Self-imposed limitations: 100 words per section and no explicit description of Keith’s emotions/inner thoughts from his POV. I tried something different for each part: 1. list format; 2. dialogue-only; 3. one side of a convo (who is not Keith); 4. an attempt at Cormac McCarthy pastiche… yeah, idk. Set in the same continuity as my Shiro backstory fic [who live in troubled regions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021791).


End file.
